believed, or did not believe the story of the resurrection, he was exceedingly mad against the saints. The writer of Paul's Epistles does not attempt to prove his doctrine by argument. He in many places tells us, that his doctrine was not taught him by man, or any invention of his own, which required the ingenuity of argument to prove it :-"I certify you, brethren, that the Gospel which was preached of me, is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." Paul does not pretend to have been a witness of the story of the resurrection; but he does much more: he asserts that he was himself a witness of the resurrec tion. After enumerating many appearances of Jesus to his disciples, Paul says of himself, "Last of all, he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time." Whether you will admit Paul to have been a true witness or not, you cannot deny that he pretends to have been a witness of the resurrection.

The story of his being struck to the ground, as he was journeying to Damascus, has nothing in it, you say, miraculous or extraordinary: you represent him as struck by lightning. It is somewhat extraordinary for a man who is struck by lightning, to have, at the very time, full possession of his understanding; to hear a voice issuing from the lightning, speaking to him in the Hebrew tongue, calling him by his name, and entering into conversation with him. His companions, you say, appear not to have suffered in the same manner:-the greater the wonder. If it was a common storm of thunder and lightning which struck Paul and all his companions to the ground, it is somewhat extraordinary that he alone should be hurt; and that, notwithstanding his being struck blind by lightning, he should in other respects be so little hurt, as to be immediately able to walk into the city of DamasSo difficult is it to oppose truth by an hypothe sis!-In the character of Paul, you discover a great deal of violence and fanaticism; and such men, you

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observe, are never good moral evidences of any doctrine they preach.-Read, Sir, Lord Lyttleton's observations on the conversion and apostleship of St. Paul; and I think you will be convinced of the contrary. That elegant writer thus expresses his opinion on this subject: "Besides all the proofs of the Christian religion, which may be drawn from the prophecies of the Old Testament, from the necessary connexion it has with the whole system of the Jewish religion, from the miracles of Christ, and from the evidence given of his resurrection by all the other apostles, I think the conversion and apostleship of St. Paul alone, duly considered, is, of itself, a demonstration sufficient to prove Christianity to be a divine revelation." I hope this opinion will have some weight with you; it is not the opinion of a lying Bible prophet, of a stupid evangelist, or of an a bab priest,but of a learned layman, whose illustrious rank received splendour from his talents.

You are displeased with St. Paul "for setting out to prove the resurrection of the same body."-You know, I presume, that the resurrection of the same body is not, by all, admitted to be a Scriptural doctrine." In the New Testament (wherein, I think, are contained all the articles of the Christian faith) I find our Saviour and the apostles to preach the resurrection of the dead, and the resurrection from the dead, in many places; but I do not remember any place where the resurrection of the same body is so much as mentioned." This observation of Mr. Locke I so far adopt, as to deny that you can produce any place in the writings of St. Paul, wherein he sets out to prove the resurrection of the same body. I do not question the possibility of the resurrection of the same body, and I am not ignorant of the manner in which some learned men have explained it (somewhat after the way of your vegetative speck in the kernel of a peach); but as you are discrediting St. Paul's doctrine, you ought to show that what you attempt to discredit

is the doctrine of the apostle. As a matter of choice, you had rather have a better body :-you will have a better body," your natural body will be raised a spiritual body, your corruptible will put on incorrup tion." You are so much out of humour with your present body, that you inform us, every animal in the creation excels us in something. Now I had always thought, that the single circumstance of our having hands, and their having none, gave us an infinite superiority not only over insects, fishes, snails, and spiders (which you represent as excelling us in locomotive powers), but over all the animals of the creation; and enabled us, in the language of Cicero, describing the manifold utility of our hands, to make, as it were, a new nature of things. As to what you say about the consciousness of existence being the only conceivable idea of a future life-it proves nothing either for or against the resurrection of a body, or of the same body; it does not inform us, whether to any or to what substance, material or immaterial, this consciousness is annexed. I leave it, however, to others, who do not admit personal identity to consist in consciousness, to dispute with you on this point, and willingly subscribe to the opinion of Mr. Locke, "that nothing but consciousness can unite remote existences into the same person.

From a caterpillar's passing into a torpid state resembling death, and afterwards appearing a splendid butterfly, and from the (supposed) consciousness of existence which the animal had in these different states, you ask, "Why must I believe, that the resurrection of the same body is necessary to continue in me the consciousness of existence hereafter?"-I do not dislike analogical reasoning, when applied to proper objects, and kept within due bounds:-but where is it said in Scripture, that the resurrection of the same body is necessary to continue in you the consciousness of existence? Those who admit a conscious state of the soul between death and the resurrection,

will contend, that the soul is the substance in which consciousness is continued without interruption :those who deny the intermediate state of the soul as a state of consciousness, will contend, that consciousness is not destroyed by death, but suspended by it, as it is suspended during a sound sleep; and that it may as easily be restored after death, as after sleep, during which the faculties of the soul are not extinct, but dormant.-Those who think that the soul is nothing distinct from the compages of the body, not a substance but a mere quality, will maintain, that the consciousness appertaining to every individual person is not lost when the body is destroyed; that it is known to God; and may, at the general resurrection, be annexed to any system of matter he may think fit, or to that particular compages to which it belonged in this life.

In reading your book I have been frequently shocked at the virulence of your zeal, at the indecorum of your abuse in applying vulgar and offensive epithets to men who have been held, and who will long, I trust, continue to be holden in high estimation. I know that the scar of calumny is seldom wholly effaced, it remains long after the wound is healed; and your abuse of holy men and holy things will be remembered, when your arguments against them are refuted and forgotten. Moses you term an arrogant coxcomb, a chief assassin; Aaron, Joshua, Samuel, David, monsters and impostors; the Jewish kings a parcel of rascals; Jeremiah and the rest of the prophets, liars; and Paul a fool, for having written one of the sublimest compositions, and on the most important subject that ever occupied the mind of man-the lesson in our burial service. This lesson you calf a doubtful jargon, as destitute of meaning as the tolling of the bell at the funeral. Men of low condition! pressed down, as you often are, by calamities generally incident to human nature, and groaning under burdens of misery peculiar to your condition, what thought you when

you heard this lesson read at the funeral of your child, your parent, or your friend? Was it mere jargon to you, as destitute of meaning as the tolling of a bell?-No.-You understood from it, that you would not all sleep, but that you would all be changed in a moment at the last trump; you understood from it, that this corruptible must put on incorruption, that this mortal must put on immortality, and that death would be swallowed up in victory; you understand from it, that if (notwithstanding profane attempts to subvert your faith) ye continue steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, your labour will not be in vain.

You seem fond of displaying your skill in science and philosophy; you speak more than once of Euclid ; and, in censuring St. Paul, you intimate to us, that when the apostle says-one star differeth from another star in glory, he ought to have said-in distance. All men see that one star differeth from another star in glory or brightness; but few men know that their difference in brightness arises from their difference in distance; and I beg leave to say, that even you, philosopher as you are, do not know it. You make an assumption which you cannot prove-that the stars. are equal in magnitude, and placed at different distances from the earth; but you cannot prove that they are not different in magnitude, and placed at equal distances, though none of them may be so near to the earth, as to have any sensible annual parallax.-I beg pardon of my readers for touching upon this subject; but it really moves one's indignation, to see a smattering in philosophy urged as an argument against the veracity of an apostle" Little learning is a dangerous thing."

Paul, you say, affects to be a naturalist; and to prove (you might more properly have said, illustrate) his system of resurrection from the principles of vege tation-Thou fool," says he, "that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die :"-to which one